


Acknowledged

by ghostwriterofthemachine



Series: tethered and bound [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Communication, Elements of Brainwashing, Gen, Kinda, Mutually Non-Consensual Power Dynamics, Platonic Power Dynamics, Slavery, Supernatural Elements, Texting, Things Get Worse, Transformation, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22026184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriterofthemachine/pseuds/ghostwriterofthemachine
Summary: Tim knew, on a deep, instinctual level, a Blood level, that giving into the urges that the Binding implanted them with was a terrible idea. But there must be something better than what they were doing now.Or: things get better, before getting horribly, demonstrably worse.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake/Ra's al Ghul
Series: tethered and bound [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/956034
Comments: 83
Kudos: 525





	Acknowledged

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Подтверждение](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24732433) by [KisVani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KisVani/pseuds/KisVani)



> “Ghostwriter!!!!” you scream at me, “why did this take you almost two fucking years to put out, you fuck???”
> 
> Um. In my defense. I’ve had kinda a mess of a two years? 
> 
> Like I was in my last semester of college, then I was working on my thesis to graduate, then getting myself out of a very abusive situation, then having a mental breakdown over said abusive situation, then looking for a job, then working full time, then working on original writing projects, then losing all my motivation to write because my brain hates me, ect ect ect. It’s been a time, all. And I honestly thought that so much time and bullshit happened between me writing this and now that my muse for the idea was just. Well. Dead. 
> 
> And then I woke up the other day, and this idea was sitting, fully formed and waiting for me to write it. And suddenly I could write it again. 
> 
> So I’m sorry about the hiatus, and idk if anyone is still even really reading this. But I hope you like it, regardless.
> 
> I also had a long internal struggle about whether or not I should categorize this as underage. I eventually decided on no, because **no explicit sexual content happens in this story, and no sexual content happens towards a child in this story.** That being said, **this story does contain a child having to confront the idea of sexuality, and having vaguely sexual feelings that he is not emotionally or physically ready to experience essentially forced onto him via magic.** This makes him uncomfortable, and characters discuss this. Please be aware of this before you read.

“Jason,” said Dick, staring at the door both his little brothers had just fled out of, “Jason, I can’t. I just—I just—what do we  _ do? _ ”

“Fuck, Dick, how do you think I feel?” Jason snapped out, though it lacked a lot of his usual heat. “That was. That was my fault, right?”

“No,” said Dick, and his voice broke. “Don’t you  _ fucking  _ start, Jason Todd. It wasn’t your fault. This is just—”

“Really fucked up?”

“ _ Awful _ . I don’t know what to do. We’re supposed to protect them. Jason, how do we  _ fix this? _ ”

“I don’t have an answer for you. I’m not a miracle worker.” 

And then Jason retreated across the room before he did something stupid, like wrap Dick up in a hug until he looked less like he was going to fall into pieces on the floor.

.

Hours later, in the ink-black morning, Tim and Damian re-entered the cave. They were standing closer to one another than Dick was used to seeing. Tim was leading them, by a half-step. 

Jason lifted his head. Dick stood up, opened his mouth to speak, but Tim cut him off. 

“This is going to be really hard,” said Tim. “We’re all going to make mistakes. And we’re going to have to learn how to forgive each other for them. I know that isn’t our normal  _ style _ ,” he barked out something like a laugh as he said it, “but it’s going to be a rule for this situation, from now on. Can we do that?”

Dick swallows thickly, and takes two steps towards the boys. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we can do that. Jay?” 

Jason nodded once, mouth in a thin, hard line. 

Tim exhaled. “Alright,” he said. Behind him, Damian trembled, only slightly.

“Can I—” Dick took another step towards them. “Look, I really need to hug both of you right now, alright? Is that okay?”

A long, weighted second passed, until Damian made a noise that was exactly true to his age, for once. Then he bolted across the room and into Dick’s arms. Tim was only a half step behind him. Dick pulled them both as close as he could get and  _ squeezed _ , eyes shut, breathing.

Jason reached into a drawer, pulled out a steno pad from the stash that Bruce kept there. He uncapped a pen and started writing. 

.

  
  


“Okay,” said Jason, the next day. He walked into the kitchen, where Tim, Dick, and Damian all sat in uneasy silence, holding a now-battered steno pad in his hand. He threw it onto the table in front of Damian.

Jason always hid exhaustion better than the rest of them, but a trained eye could pick up a hint of tightness at the edges of his eyes, a vibrating tension in hands that were nearly always steady. He’d been up a long time working on whatever this was. Or he’d never gone to sleep in the first place. 

Damian reached out slowly and pulled the notepad closer to him. 

“What is this?” asked their youngest. 

“An idea,” said Jason, as he took the seat between Dick and Tim. “A temporary solution, if I’m right. Read it out loud, brat.”

Damian read it to himself first, eyes skimming over Jason’s spiky handwriting. His eyes widened slightly. “Oh,” he said. 

“Gunna share with the class?” asked Dick, the lightness of the humor in his voice a dead giveaway of how stressed and upset he was.

Damian licked his lips, and read off of the paper, “Drake, when I give you an order, you must acknowledge it verbally and wait for my own acknowledgment before you carry it out.” 

“Acknowledged.” Tim’s mouth formed the words without his consent, the way  _ Master  _ had on that awful first day, and he startled. Then understanding dawned on his face. “Oh, Jason,” he breathed, “Jason, that is  _ brilliant _ .” 

Jason shifted uncomfortably. “Eh, it’s nothin—”

“No,” said Dick, a real smile creeping onto his face. “No, Little Wing, you’re incredible, this is—”

“Thank you, Todd,” said Damian. 

The other three stopped and looked at Damian as one, comically identical looks of shock on their faces. 

Then Tim said, “Yes, Jason. Thank you.”

Jason cleared his throat. “You’re welcome. Now pass me the coffee, before Replacement absorbs it all through his skin, c’mon—”

.

See, the issue was. The issue  _ was _ , that Damian pretty much spoke in orders. It was the purest way he communicated. 

On one level, it was a remnant from his early childhood—an assassin prince did not  _ ask  _ for things. He simply  _ demanded  _ them, and then he  _ had  _ them. 

On another level, it was a demonstration of a simple, admirable personality train—a practical utilitarian sensibility. A dislike of frills. If he needed something, he simply stated that he needed it. If something needed to be done, he would demand the way he saw it could best be done. 

Damian ordered like breathing. Like basic communication. 

And when it became obvious how the Binding worked, well. He’d just stopped talking. Stopped communicating. There was nothing else he could do. It was ‘banish his voice’ or ‘be his Grandfather.’ 

So everything had gotten bottled up, everything started building, until—

_ “Fuck off and die, Timmy.” _

_ “Yes, Drake, please do.” _

things exploded. 

But now, with Jason’s system—

_ “Hand me the jam.” _

_ “Acknowledged.” _

_ “Tt. Apologies. Never mind. Grayson, hand me the jam.” _

Damian had his voice back. 

_ “Cease this foolish blathering.” _

_ “Acknowledged.”  _

_ “Do not follow that. You may continue speaking as normal.”  _

_ “Hey, thanks Damian.” _

And that meant more than any of them realized. 

.

A text message from John Constantine:

_ how willing are they to part with limbs? _

Response, from Jason Todd:

_ No _ . 

Response, from John Constantine:

_ k. gunna need more time.  _

Jason threw his phone across the room. 

.

Things are actually getting better for a while, with Damian’s voice returned, other than the ever-present countdown in the back of everyone’s mind to Bruce coming back from the League mission. No one was quite ready for that confrontation. 

Then again, none of them were ever really  _ ready  _ for any kind of confrontation with their father, so maybe it’s a bit more normal than any of them realize. 

But everyday life—that was feeling better. Everyone was moving more naturally around each other. They began patrolling in a group again, when it was needed. 

Like when a confrontation with Killer Croc turned into an all-hands-on-deck situation, and then to an old-fashioned beatdown on the edges of Robinson park. 

Nightwing laughed as he used a bench as a springboard, launching himself into the air and over Croc’s head. Croc spun to follow him, leaving his back open to Hood and Red Robin.

Croc thrashed his tail and it caught Red Robin, sending him sprawling backwards with the air knocked out of him. 

Nightwing and Hood finished the takedown, and Robin leaped over to help Red Robin to his feet. 

“You good, Red?” called Red Hood over his shoulder, tying off the last of the restraints. In the distance, they could hear sirens, getting closer. 

“Yeah, all good,” called Red Robin, and then winced, barely audible. His mouth twisted down. 

“Robin,” he said, softly, so only the two of them could hear, “let go.”

“What are you talking abou—” Robin began, and then choked. 

His hand was still latched around Red Robin’s wrist, and his was squeezing. Hard enough to grind bones against each other. Hard enough to leave bruises. 

Something in his mind was leaping for joy, egging him on, telling him to squeeze harder and then  _ twist  _ and then  _ push—  _

Robin threw the arm away. Red Robin curled in close to his body, and watched in silence as Robin stalked in the other direction to help Nightwing. 

If his wrist bruised, there was no reason for anyone to believe that it was from anything other than a bad fall from the blow Croc got in. 

(If something in his own mind was sneering at him that he’d only been given what he deserved, that he deserved far worse, that he’d brought punishment on himself—well. No one needed to know about that at all.)

. 

Tim didn’t sleep that night, which wasn’t unusual, but was unfortunately becoming more common-placed. His sleep schedule was never good, per say, but contrary to what his family seemed determined to believe, he usually managed four or five hours a night if he wasn’t on a case. 

These days, he was lucky to get two or three. Whenever he laid still, the runes on his wrists burned as if they were burrowing deeper into him, and insidious thoughts wormed their way to the core of his being. 

He spent long nights in the living room, legs crossed under him and laptop on his knees, following up on old case notes. Reorganizing old databases and plans. Researching everything he could on Binding creatures, the aftermath of it, the way that the Binding broke. Flinched every time it was death. 

Tim felt another presence enter the room, but said nothing about it for several minutes. Giving the other time to make the first move, if he wished. 

“What is it?” Tim finally asked, without looking up from his laptop. 

Damian stood in the doorway to the room, head knocking against the doorframe. He raised one shoulder in a shrug. 

“You can come in, you know. This is your house too, more than it is mine these days. I know you know that, you’ve reminded me of it enough.”

Tim glanced over at Damian, a worn smile pulling at him lips. 

Damian padded into the room. His feet were bare and his pajamas were overlarge. He sat on the other side of the couch, curled so his chin rested on his knees. 

Tim went back to his laptop. Typed. Waited. 

“It’s getting worse,” said Damian. 

“Is that what tonight was?”

“Yes. It’s telling me to—hurt is the wrong word. I want to—” Damian shifted, uncomfortable. 

“Dominate.” 

Damian cringed away from the word—from the implications, connotations he was too young to confront, the cruelty that he never wanted to see manifested in himself. But he nodded. 

“Yes. I don’t  _ want  _ to, but I—” 

“I know.” Tim shut his laptop and put it aside. He rubbed the heels of his hands over his dry eyes. “I’m...I’m feeling the same thing. Flip side of it, but same basic idea. It’s not you. It’s the spell.”

Another silence fell. 

“Are the runes hurting you?” asked Damian, voice soft. 

“Yes,” replied Tim, who saw no reason to deny it. “They burn. They’re not happy at me for disobeying. There’s a—”

Damian finished, “A voice.”

“Yes,” Time sighed. “There’s a voice. It’s a very specific Binding, and we’re not following those specifications. Do the runes hurt you?”

“More of an itch, I suppose. Unpleasant. The voice is more of a...a problem. It’s like—what’s it called, when you have sudden, violent visions that you would never want to act on, but cannot banish from your mind?”

“Intrusive thought,” Tim supplied. 

“Like that. But worse, constant, all focused on you, all things that I can’t—that I don’t—”

Tim interrupted him. “When was the last time you slept?”

Damian’s lack of response was all the answer he needed. 

Tim let out a long, weighted breath. His head pounded and his wrists hurt for more reasons than one, and he was bruised to hell from a crocodile man’s tail, and he was just. So tired. 

“Alright,” he murmured. “Let me think. Just. Give me a second.”

Because he knew, on a deep, instinctual level, a Blood level, that giving into the urges that the Binding implanted in them was a terrible idea. But there had to be something better than this. 

Okay. Okay.

The symbolism was going to be very important here. Because the Voice is telling him  _ kneel _ , telling him  _ grovel _ . But maybe if they— 

“I’m going to try something,” Tim said. “Speak up if it freaks you out or makes anything worse.”

And he swung himself sideways on the couch and lowered himself backwards until his head rested in Damian’s lap. 

Caretaking, as opposed to blunt Domination. 

Neither of them moved, or spoke. Then, slowly, Damian’s hands floated up and carded through Tim’s hair. 

The burning on his wrists faded significantly. Damian showed no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Tim eventually dozed off. 

The next morning, when Dick walked in and found them both asleep like that, he was torn between joy and terror in a way that was unique and horrifying. 

.

A text, from John Constantine: 

_ how much do you know about medium robin’s fae blood ? _

A response, from Jason Todd:

_ not much. very diluted, probably winter court? mother’s side, not father’s.  _

A response, from John Constantine:

_ alrigt _

A response, from Jason Todd:

_ progress ? _

A response, from John Constantine:

_ al ghul is a bastard.  _

Jason sighed, responded:

_ you have no fuckin idea.  _

.

They try to adapt it into their lives in small ways. Harmless ways. Ways that could almost seem normal, if you didn’t know why they were doing it. 

Tim got Damian a glass of juice at dinner, passed him water bottles during patrol. Damian flicked hair ties at Tim to keep his hair out of his face, and threw sweatshirts at him when he was working late. 

It wasn’t going to be enough forever, Tim could already tell. The strange, cloying warmth that spread through him whenever he completed those tasks was becoming less and less unwelcomed.

“This is changing us,” he said to Dick, in a quiet moment. “It’s changing us quickly. And I don’t know what it’s turning us into. I don’t think I want to know.”

“You won’t have to,” said Dick, low and fierce. “We’re not going to let it.”

(And, really, Dick should know better. What was purer folk magic than a jinx?)

.

Maybe they get lazy. Maybe they get overwhelmed. Maybe they have one careless slip and it spiraled so far out of control purely because of Gotham luck. 

But what happened was that there were ninja in Gotham. And Robin and Red Robin faced them alone, because there were ninja the same night that Freeze decided to resurface, and they were short staffed without B, and everything led up to— 

Three of them pinning Robin’s twisting limbs, a short pause by Red Robin, debating whether to rush forward or fall back, because they both knew what this meant, they both knew who this was, and Robin opened his mouth to shriek— 

“Red,  _ run _ .”

And Red Robin froze where he stood. 

“Acknowledged,” he said. And he couldn’t move until Damian— 

The two of them had a moment of wide-eyed, horrified eye contact, as a gag was jammed between Damian’s lips, and then a needle into his neck. And then two of them rushed Tim, who still couldn’t obey until Damian acknowledged his acknowledgment.

He had enough time to activate his distress beacon. And then there was darkness. 

.

“They left the beacon on the rooftop so we would  _ fucking find it, _ ” Jason snarled. “They left a calling card, because we know exactly who has them and we can’t do a _ god-damned thing about it. _ ”

Jason kicked the rolling chair that sat in front of one of the counters in the cave. It tipped over, and the arm cracked. 

“Dick,” he said, voice breaking, whirling around to face the other. “Dick, _ what the fuck are we supposed to do? _ ”

And the person who looked back at him, scary calm and cold, was all the Dark Heir of Gotham, all icy-hatred and cool control, Nightwing at his most poised. Dick very well hidden by it. 

“That’s simple,” said Nightwing, “we’re going to get them back, we’re going to—”

And then, two things happened very quickly. 

On one side of the cave, a teleportation circle opened up, shone golden-bright, and then faded away. Out of it walked John fucking Constantine, looking singed around the eyebrows and hair, irritated beyond all belief, and vaguely triumphant. 

“You’re all about to love me,” he said loudly, “Because I have a solution to all your—hang on, where are the—”

He didn’t get to finish, because, on the other side of the cave, a door opened, and in walked Bruce Wayne, the Batman himself, cape and cowl still in place.

Everyone froze. Jason and Dick looking from one intruding party to the other. Constantine’s mouth hanging open. Bruce’s face growing more and more stormy. 

“Would someone like to tell me,” asked Batman, “what on earth is going on here?”

Jason sat down on the floor. He placed his head in his hands, and started laughing. 

.

Dark, dry air. A room lit by torch light. A huge, gnarled hand on a small shoulder. 

Damian swallowed, and it stuck in his throat. His breath caught. Tim squeezed his hands into fists, and then released them. 

“Timothy,” said Damian, hoarsely. “On your knees.”

Tim folded. He hit the ground with an easy grace, head tipped up and back to bare his throat. Eyes never leaving Damian’s. 

The hand on Damian’s shoulder squeezed. 

“Tell me you’re worthless,” said Damian, voice dropping even lower. 

“I’m worthless,” repeated Tim, easy as breathing, completely emotionless. 

They never broke eye contact. ‘ _ I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, _ ’ chanted one. ‘ _ I know, shhh, it’s okay, _ ’ said the other. 

Another press to Damian’s shoulder. Damian choked on a whimper. 

A micro-nod from Tim, and he forced out another sentence, all steely resolve:

_ “Prove it.” _

And Tim moved, fluid and easy. Bent himself in half. 

He pressed his lips to the toe of Damian’s boot, the kiss as damning as the one that started all of this.

“Yes,” smiled Ra’s. “Yes, I do believe that we can work with this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a comment if you liked it :)


End file.
